


Somebody (If the World is Gonna Roll Me)

by musicanova



Series: Sing Me to Sleep (Our Beds are Burning) [2]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Australia, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Changbin is a rich bitch, Fluff and Crack, Jisung is an absolute bun, M/M, Not proofread so sorry :((, Some mini mini itzy cameos!, This is a spin-off for Cupids Might Aim!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-12
Packaged: 2020-01-11 23:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18434213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicanova/pseuds/musicanova
Summary: These are the things Felix learns throughout high school: Changbin is cool, Changbin is amazing, and Changbin doesn't have a foot fetish.(Alternatively, Changlix star in a high school romance that rivals no other, because none of their friends got their shit together until university.)





	Somebody (If the World is Gonna Roll Me)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Cupid'verse spin-off number one!! I don't know if this can be read as a standalone? I don't know s h i t
> 
> I’m sorry y’all this story is a damn MESS because I kept writing it on and off in between uni assessment, but I hope you’ll love it all the same! I know Cupids was severely missing a lot of Changlix love, so I wrapped it up into this short little thing!

**** It starts like this: Felix Lee, twelve years of age, bright eyed and bushy tailed, buzzing to start his high school life. 

Sure, maybe a majority of the buzzing is because he’s nervous, but somewhere deep down inside, it’s also because he’s excited. Probably.

JYP High is kind of a big deal for Felix. It’s a big deal for anyone, really. It’s the best public high school this side of the river, and Felix worked his arse off to pass the entrance exam. Which… he didn’t end up passing. But that’s alright! Because everyone has strengths and weaknesses in different places, and you still tried your best son, and we’re proud of you no matter what and yada yada yada. 

JYP High is notorious for its entrance exam, and Felix turns out to be no match for it. He runs out of time, misses the last few questions, then fails the exam by one mark.

Hence the you still tried your best speech that his father very earnestly gave him over consolation pancakes at Pancake Manor. Which, thanks dad, because now Pancake Manor is tainted with this memory, and Felix will never be able to fully enjoy the delicious, fluffy, angelic, beautiful, amazing pancakes of this blessed establishment ever again. 

And so it goes like this: the fourth (pancake) the fifth (pancake), a year passes and blah blah blah, sports scholarship blah blah, talented Soccer player blah blah, would be delighted to have you blah blah blah, could be an upstanding member of our blah blah blah blah blah. 

So here Felix is. JYP High. 

(The details are negligible, hence the blah blah blah-ing. If anyone wants to know they can wait for his biographical film when he becomes a soccer superstar.) 

It’s… a little daunting, if he’s being honest. The campus is almost double the size of his quaint primary school, and it’s teeming with surly looking teenagers. Already, somebody’s laughed at the way Felix is clinging to both his backpack straps as if it’s the one thing that will keep him alive — it doesn’t feel like the greatest start.

But above all that, he supposes the scariest part of it all is that he has no sense of familiarity whatsoever. For those who went to JYP Primary, coming up into JYP High is more or less a breeze. It’s the same school, just… more. But for Felix, JYP High is completely and utterly new. 

Suddenly, Felix wishes he had Chan by his side. Not that he’s physically seen the guy since he was like, seven years old, but Chan’s embrace whenever things went wrong is something Felix can never forget. Sure, they were a little bony and not as comfortable as his mum’s hugs, but sometimes there are things you can’t take to your parents, and that’s when Felix had always turned to Chan. 

Right now though, he knows texting his old babysitter isn’t going to do him squat. He needs a hug, stat, and a good one at that. So unless someone in this school is suddenly feeling cuddly, Felix supposes he’ll just have to miss the first day of high school and book himself a flight to Sydney and straight into Chan’s arms. 

Which is exactly the kind of thing that would make his parents livid and probably get himself grounded from all fun for the next twenty years of his life, so. 

Perhaps not. 

But it was a nice idea to entertain while he could. 

“Hi! Are you in Year 8?” a voice comes from above. 

Felix tries not to squeak. God is trying to contact him from the skies, and it won’t do to embarrass himself in front of this guy — what if this is the moment he blows his shot at getting into heaven? But when he looks up, it’s not God, it’s just some hulking student that has to be some fifty thousand metres tall. 

“Hey now, take it easy big fella, I’m not gonna kidnap you,” tall guy laughs at Felix’s slowly retreating form. “Come on, I’ll lead you to the gym, it’s where all of the other Year 8 kids are so they can tell you how your day will go.” 

Needless to say much of the morning is a blur for Felix. Between nervously fiddling with his hands while tall guy chats with him and wanting to cling to tall guy’s arm when he drops Felix off at the gym to pick up more lost newbies, he doesn’t really have the time to be thinking. He barely even remembers to say thanks to tall guy, let alone catch his name. 

The assembly that begins once it seems like the majority of Year 8s have been rounded up is pretty boring. First of all, starting off an assembly (which is already incredibly boring by principle) by saying “we’ll be going over this information once more when you’ve been divided up into your home rooms” is not the smartest idea a school has ever had. Surely the teachers are smart enough to realise that saying that means students won’t listen the first time around.

Felix only starts listening when they announce that everyone will be split into houses, and he looks up to find smiling teachers waving coloured flags in different corners of the gym. 

“Our housing system is completely randomised to ensure that you can experience a diverse community within your houses,” says the principal. 

“Bullshit,” whispers the girl sitting next to Felix, emphasis on the shit. 

In the end, Felix gets into Sargent, the red house, his face brightening to the colour of said house’s flag as his name rings out into the gym. He’s never really liked attention being on him, even if it’s fleeting. Not unless he’s actually done something worthwhile to call for it.

“Knew it,” the girl beside him sneers. “Always the sporty ones in Sargent. Completely randomised my fucking arse.” 

Felix gives a wavering smile before walking away from her. The girl only rolls her eyes in response before being placed into Severo herself: there’s something laughable in the way that the girl’s eyes widen in shock before she picks herself up to stalk across the gym towards the purple flag where a sea of mellow creatives and their shy smiles await her. 

So the housing system _is_ randomised — to an extent. 

Felix recognises a couple of names from his primary school as they’re called out. Kevin with the voice from Heaven ( _not_ a nickname Felix gave the guy before you try to tease him for it, it’s the music teacher’s fault) gets put into Warwick where Felix is too afraid to look at the flag because the green is so bright, and there’s some others that are already a blur in Felix’s mind. 

Wringing his hands for what’s probably the fifty-eighth time (and don’t even get him started on how many times he’s checked his pulse), Felix is in his own world when there’s a light tap on his shoulder. He visibly startles, of which he’s a little embarrassed of, but the person who tapped him doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he just laughs. 

“Hey, you look new. Where’d you come from?” 

“Uh, Aus-Australia?” Felix stutters out, confused. Out of everything that could’ve come from the guy’s mouth, what he expected least was a typical white-person-trying-to-be-cultured question. 

“You’re funny, I like you,” the guy says, his cheeks bunching up when he grins even harder. “But seriously, what primary?”

And they bond, just like that, chattering as their Head of House takes them to their very first classroom of high school. Well, it isn’t _just_ like that, they go through some introductions first, they shake hands (the guy tries to go for a hug, but Felix intercepts it because he’s not used to cute guys hugging him five minutes after they’ve met), they exchange some jokes and _then_ they start bonding. 

Felix learns that the guy’s name is Jisung. He’s Korean, just like Felix is, and he feels a wave of relief wash over him for it. There’s always a sense of comfort that comes in having another Asian with you in class; don’t get Felix wrong, he’s not trying to be _racist_ , but there’s just a certain feeling of solidarity that comes with an Asian having your back. You know, like with that time when Kevin with the voice from Heaven cried with Felix when- well, he won’t get into the details. It’s best not to think about what happened then. 

Felix learns that Jisung is incredibly talkative, that he loves doing impressions, and has a group of friends he “just knows Felix will adore”. He learns that Jisung is adorable in the same sense that a small animal is, and he also learns that Jisung is the best thing to happen to his life ever. 

In a matter of minutes (45 minutes, to be exact, of ignoring the teacher at the front of the room who continues to explain the workings of the school), Felix knows that Jisung is his best friend. He almost feels like he’s found his soulmate. Jisung just _gets_ everything in ways that his primary school friends never have, and he can tangibly feel his nerves melting away as Jisung animatedly tells him all about his soon-to-be group of friends. 

“And then last but not least, there’s Changbin! You’ll love Changbin, I’m sure of it.” 

Jisung has said that for the last four people, but somehow he still makes it sound credible.

“Everyone thinks Changbin’s really scary, but don’t be fooled! He’s our baby. I mean, he’s like second oldest after Minho, but he’s our baby. Uh, he really likes rapping, and sometimes Changbin and I get together to write songs even though we don’t really do anything with them.” 

That gets Felix’s attention. He wants to ask if Jisung will let him listen to their songs some time, but Jisung’s already ploughing on. 

“Let’s see… what else about Changbin… Oh right! His face is like a triangle, and he’s also super short. Like, _super_ short. Like oh I thought you were a primary school girl short. Maybe don’t mention that in front of him though. He gets all sensitive about it. Dunno why.” 

Felix thinks he knows exactly why, but he chooses not to comment.

 

-«•»-

 

It’s morning tea when Felix meets Changbin for the first time. 

Jisung has taken the time to give him a quick tour of the important parts of the school campus (i.e. good hiding spots when you’re not in the mood for maths, the tuck shop, the bubblers with the coldest water, and so on and so forth), and by the time they reach the lunch table, morning tea is in full swing. 

Changbin, predictably, is the one who catches Felix’s attention first. Years later, he’ll argue it was because the guy was standing on the table, but everyone knows that’s not the case. 

It’s love at first sight, really. There Changbin is, holding a half-eaten raw carrot in his hand as he spits mad bars (Felix’s words, _not_ the narrator’s), the rickety plastic lunch table shaking underneath him as he sways to the beat. The sun glints in his pitch black hair, his tie is loose, and his knee highs rest bunched around his ankles. He’s wearing low cut Docs as school shoes (Felix looks down at his Ascents in mild shame), his belt buckle is gold (again, Felix looks down at his dull silver buckle in mild shame) and the guy just radiates cool in a way that Felix has never seen before. 

Ever. 

So yeah, he’s taken. 

He doesn’t realise he’s stopped walking until Jisung nudges him. 

“Come on, you’ll be right. Promise you he’s not as scary as he looks.” 

But that’s not why Felix stopped. Also, Jisung’s already told him that Changbin is a baby. 

Felix gives Jisung a shaky smile, reminding himself to put one foot forward and then the next. Jisung’s hand is on his back when he reaches the table, and he takes a deep breath before he forces his head to look up. 

The rest, as they say, is history. 

 

——«•»——

 

“You good, dude?” Felix asks the upside down Changbin that’s preparing popcorn. He seems to be struggling with how hot the microwave bag is, and it’s endlessly amusing.

Now, Felix could get up off the bean bag to help Changbin. He could. But first of all, bean bags are difficult to stand up from once you’re comfortably situated, and second of all, where’s the fun in that? 

So here Felix is, straining his neck over the top of the bean bag to peer at Changbin, and it earns him a kernel to the eye that the older chucks at him in rage. 

“Some kind of dongsaeng you are,” Changbin grumbles as he sulks his way back into the living room, popcorn fiasco now sorted. 

He settles down comfortably by Felix’s side, quick to nestle himself into the bean bag. 

There’s something to be said about the perfectly sound bean bag to Felix’s right that is completely and utterly for all intents and purposes unoccupied, but Felix doesn’t mind. He likes the warmth that radiates from Changbin’s hoodie, and he takes great pleasure in being in such short poking distance to his friend (Changbin tends to fall asleep during movies a lot, and it’s fun to count how many pokes it’ll take before he awakes from his slumber). 

This is a pretty standard Friday night. Sometimes, the rest of their friends will be here, fighting over who gets the rocking chair and who’s the odd one out that has to lie on the carpet, but other times it’ll just be Changbin and Felix, because Changbin doesn’t have a curfew like everyone else does (God knows why his parents trust him so much when he literally uses a baby voice to try and get out of detention) and because over the past three months the two have grown considerably close. 

But there’s something in Felix that won’t let him call Changbin his best friend. That spot is reserved for Jisung. And Yeji, he supposes, although he hasn’t seen her in almost six years and barely remembers the feeling of her pinky around his as she tried not to cry, the engine of the moving truck muffling her whimpers. 

Logically, Felix knows that the concept of having one best friend in the whole wide universe and no other friend can be considered a best friend is a stupid one. In fact, he’s so aware of this that he thinks in a few months, once he’s gotten to know everyone a little better, he can consider all of his high school group his best friends. 

Except Changbin. 

Changbin is… special, in a way that Felix doesn’t quite understand. It’s like Felix is having one of those friend crushes again, except that this time he’s already friends with the person, and he just wants to be even more friends with them. It barely makes sense, but he thinks that’s what it is.

In any case Felix tries not to dwell on it, because school is busy and assessment deadlines are starting to pop up, and because thoughts like these have always been a little too complicated for Felix to want to spend time on: he’ll just leave them be and realise when he looks back that it’s started to figure itself out in the time that he hasn’t been paying attention to it. 

He’s sure that this will also be the same. 

They’re only a quarter of the way through the second Maze Runner movie (also known as the _best_ Maze Runner movie) when Changbin begins to doze off. Needless to say, Felix is highly scandalised, and resents putting on such a good film if Changbin wasn’t going to pay attention to it anyway. 

But Felix lets the boy sleep because it’s cute, the way that Changbin has looped his arms around Felix’s while he was too engrossed in the movie. And it’s cute, the way he snuffles every now and again before nuzzling into Felix’s shoulder. It’s also amusing that Changbin seems to have a sixth sense wherein he immediately stops his light snoring when Felix lifts his phone up to film it, but that’s somehow less of a thing. 

(These little things should be indicating something to Felix, considering if the person beside him were anyone else — say, Jisung — filming the snoring would be of the utmost importance. But Felix is blind, and not dwelling on “it”, so here he is unaware.) 

Somewhere along the way, Felix gets kicked out of the living room because his little sister wants to watch TV, and The Scorch Trials is inappropriate for young girls (“What is with your hyper-fixation on genders? Girls can watch action movies too!” “Felix, your sister is five. She doesn’t need to see people being shot to death.”), so he gently shakes Changbin awake to drag him up to his bedroom. 

Usually, this is the moment when Felix sends Changbin home. He always feels sad doing it, but Changbin has his own family, and his own comfortable bed, and his own things to do. But every time he says goodbye, Felix gets this strange empty feeling in his stomach. Hence the dragging Changbin up to his bedroom this time. 

He deposits the sleepy boy on top of his bed, standing up to pull a chair over to sit beside Changbin, when the guy whines, reaching out for Felix’s arm. 

“Can’t sleep without you,” Felix thinks he hears Changbin mumble. 

He shakes off the blush that he can feel coming on. That can’t be right. 

“Uh, pretty sure you can, considering I haven’t been in your life for the past twelve years and you don’t turn up to school every day looking like you woke up half an hour before going to bed.” 

“Can’t sleep without Gyu,” Changbin repeats, although this time Felix hears a distinct G sound. 

“Who’s Gyu?” he asks.

“My Munchlax plush,” Changbin replies lazily, clearly still half asleep.

There’s something incredibly cute about it all: whatever Changbin was murmuring about, Felix definitely wasn’t expecting a Pokémon plushie. Not that he was ever trying to fit the older boy into a box, but for obvious reasons, Felix’s first impression of Changbin didn’t involve him not being able to sleep without hugging a toy. 

“Well I hate to break it to you Bin, but you always seem to sleep just fine next to me when we’re watching movies together, so I’m pretty sure you don’t need Gyu.” 

Now, Felix considers himself a pretty mellow guy so he feels bad about it, but he’s starting to get a little ticked off. All he wanted was to spend more time with Changbin, but somehow he feels strangely betrayed by this Munchlax. How dare Changbin be missing this plush when Felix is _right here_? 

He never thought of himself as a jealous person. Maybe he’s been wrong about himself. 

“Mmf,” Changbin groans, eyes still closed but arms reaching out, “don’t need Gyu when I have you.” 

The irritation melts away immediately. What was Felix mad about again? 

“Gimme your phone,” he sighs, trying to sound exasperated, although he’s sure Changbin is too sleepy to pick up on anything. “We need to tell your mum you’re not going home before she thinks I murdered you.” 

“My mum loves you, don’t worry,” is the slurred response. 

 

-«•»-

 

High school’s not easy. It’s not like Felix went into this thinking it would be, but by crikey the whole shebang is a lot more than he’d bargained for. 

“It’ll be hard!” he remembers Mrs. Phillips saying, a few weeks before they were all graduating from primary school. “You’ll go from being big fish in a little pond to little fish in a big pond!” 

It’s an overused statement, and also one that fails to cover even half of the hardships of high school. Sorry, let Felix amend that thought: it fails to cover even half of the hardships of Year _Eight_. (Unfortunately, Felix is well aware of the fact that things will get much, much harder as he progresses into his life of senior schooling.) He wonders briefly if his teachers had warned him more he’d be in a better situation. He concludes very quickly that it wouldn’t have made much of a difference. 

“I wanna die,” Hyunjin sighs, dejectedly slapping the underside of his spoon on his cup of jelly and watching the red substance wobble. 

“Hashtag relatable,” is the only coherent response Felix can muster back. He doesn’t even have the energy for a fake cheery smile. 

Beside him, Minho is sleeping (at least he hopes he is, Felix is too young to learn First Aid yet, so he can’t perform CPR even if Minho’s life depends on it) and the only person who looks like they have an ounce of life in their eyes is Seungmin. No one is surprised about this; the guy seems to thrive off of studying. 

Changbin and Jisung are borrowing one of the music studios, busy rapping away in some secret project that apparently no one else is privy to (this Felix is offended about, but not as much as Minho is, who refused to speak to either of the amateur rappers for an entire day), so the table is considerably less vibrant, although no one’s sure how much Jisung could do given the situation. 

Friday night movie gatherings have been put on pause for the past few weeks, and more often than not Minho is found mumbling incoherent nonsense at the lunch table rather than contributing to any conversation. Felix isn’t sure if it’s incoherent because Minho’s lost his mind or if it’s incoherent because he doesn’t understand the content yet, but the point still stands. 

He’s feeling a little antsy with the lack of contact with his friends. Sure, they text in and out of trying to do their homework that was meant to be completed weeks ago before exams started, but Felix misses just being able to sit around at a table with them in the foodcourt. He misses imitating their teachers and garnering laughs from nearby tables who know exactly what they’re talking about, he misses Seungmin smacking Jisung over the head when he tries to steal a cheese fry, he misses Changbin offering to trade half his meal for half of Felix’s. 

It’s stupid, he knows. His friends are right here, next to him at the lunch table. He sighs. 

Felix isn’t sure if it’s comforting to know that this will all be over in one more week. One more week means _only_ one more week to cram study for everything and get passable grades, but worse than that is the fact that one more week means one more week until it starts all over again next term. And then the term after that. And the term after that. And so on and so forth for the next four years of his life. 

He can only imagine university to be worse, although people tell him otherwise. They’re probably all trying to trick him, anyway. 

 

——«•»——

 

It happens in a flash. 

It’s a bit of a terrifying flash, if Felix is being honest. Sure, most days he just wants school to be over forever because it’s boring and hellish and he wants to gouge his eyes out, but at the same time, he didn’t ask for time to pass by so quickly. It’s not like he knows what he wants to do with his future, and as such, obviously the progression of time should slow down until he’s figured his shit out. 

But _nooooo_ , here Felix is already at the end of his first year of high school. 

It’s alright, he supposes, except for the fact that he barely remembers anything save for the lingering nerves of exam-taking. 

That, and how Changbin helped him through a near mental break down after his maths exam. He’s eternally grateful for that one, how Changbin had refused to leave Felix’s side until he smiled, and how he managed to cheer him up so easily, as if he knew all of Felix’s inner workings. It was in that moment that he almost didn’t mind high school, warts and all, because he realised he had made amazing friends to make up for it.

Which is somewhat of a half-truth, considering the fact that great friends don’t entirely outweigh how much he hates school, but the comment still stands: Felix has the bestestestest friends he could have ever asked for, and for them he’ll endure this hell hole for another four years. 

So it’s with a renewed sense of purpose that Felix starts his second year of high school, backpack straps in hands and necktie tied neatly (props to mum, he could never do it this nicely himself), nervous, but not quite as nervous as last year.For starters, he actually knows where he’s going this time. Not to mention there are kids who are _smaller_ than him now. And kids who are bigger than him, but we won’t talk about those disproportionate giants. Felix is average, okay? _Average_.

Felix takes a step into the school, and another, and another, and then suddenly he’s graduated Year 9. 

He doesn’t know how it keeps happening so quickly. 

Looking back at the year he’s had, he thinks he’s had fun. Of course, sitting in a classroom is boring as always, but at lunch he has his friends, and the sports carnivals are better now that he’s not the runt of the pack, and things are starting to look up. 

The things that stand out to Felix are these: 

  1. Felix is hopelessly head over heels in friend-love with Changbin. This seems to be a constant feeling that transcends time, but it continues to grow stronger. He’s tried to Google what the feeling means, but to no avail. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t quite know what to Google, but “what does it mean when you love your friend a lot” and other such variations of this phrase haven’t really helped him out: Google keeps telling him he’s in actual love, like _love_ love, but Felix knows that’s not what it is. 
  2. Felix was the star of the swimming carnival this year, and he doesn’t know how it happened. He’s never thought of himself as any sort of elite swimmer, but he managed to score Sargent their first gold for the year. Jisung, who comes last in his own race, takes Felix’s ribbon and poses with it for a selfie to send to his mother. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry about the fact that his mum’s immediate response is “that’s not yours”. 
  3. Soccer is also a smashing success, mostly because he’s no longer a water boy. One would think that considering Felix literally got into the school on a full scholarship for soccer, he would’ve foregone this step, but apparently being in year eight makes you so lowly that you just have to be demoted to a towel rack for an entire year no matter your skill level. Now though, he actually gets to kick a ball, and it feels incredibly exciting. 
  4. Felix finds out that Changbin is a choir boy. Well, Changbin and Seungmin. But he’s not particularly surprised about Seungmin, so that part’s not really of note. Changbin on the other hand, though? Cool, rapping Changbin with his golden belt buckle and Doc Martens? It almost makes his heart flutter. (It would, if Felix were in love-love with Changbin. Luckily for Felix, he’s only in friend-love with Changbin, so all it does is make his stomach churn instead.) Felix starts going to as many of the school’s music concerts as he can, just to see Changbin. He tries to do it discretely, but Seungmin catches him after the third time. It becomes their little secret. 
  5. Chan comes back up to visit Felix in the middle of the year. He’s just been signed to a record label, and Felix is so excited about it that he nearly blasts Chan’s ear off yelling. “Do you have a stage name?” Felix asks, buzzing out of his skin. Chan’s response to his question doesn’t disappoint. Although, he does have to say that the possibilities for sexual innuendos in a stage name like _that_ will lead to a lot of inappropriate headlines in the future. When Chan gives him a pointed look, Felix just shrugs. Well when you make it big in America there’ll be dating rumours and scandals everywhere, _duh_. That’s showbiz, babey! Chan seems unimpressed, but Felix will continue to tease him about the stage name for at least a good ten years. 
  6. They make a new friend: a tiny, tiny boy called Jeongin. He has blinding braces that are kept in such pristine condition that they singlehandedly put Felix and the plates on his bedside table (that haven’t been put into his mouth for 17 months and counting but we don’t talk about that) to shame. He joins the choir too, and Felix feels happy to have more friends he can support by going to the school concerts. He gets dirty looks when he whoops and cheers after Jeongin gets a solo line in one of the songs, but it’s worth it for the way the boy blushes, trying not to laugh, braces sparkling more under the stage lights. 



 

——«•»——

 

It’s a Wednesday when it hits Felix. Ordinarily, Wednesdays are the worst day of the week (it’s literally hump day, what’s not to hate), but now that Felix has had this grand revelation, he’s not sure if his day’s gotten better or worse. 

The revelation goes something like this:

Felix is tired. He’s grumpy. He just failed his practice science exam, and last week at the parent-teacher interview his maths teacher suggested he drop down into the easier class instead of continuing on with the standard one. (Felix knows what you’re thinking. He knows you’re thinking “ah, I see, his revelation is about the fact that he’s not very smart” but that’s wrong, because Felix already knows that academics aren’t his strong suit; there’s a reason his full scholarship is for soccer. He’s just trying to set the scene.) He’s lying on Jisung’s bedroom floor and the two of them are in a cuddled heap, bemoaning their pitiful existence. 

The thing is, Jisung is literally a hair’s breadth away from Felix. He’s so close that he can smell Jisung’s breath (it’s gross and smells like garlic, or as Felix would rather phrase it, smells like betrayal, because it means Jisung had garlic bread without him), and every time the guy blinks Felix can feel his eyelashes against his cheek. 

And so the revelation hits.

Felix holds Jisung closer to him very tentatively. Then he lets go completely, rolling away. 

“I gotta blast, dude. Just remembered I’m supposed to clean the bathrooms today.”

 

-«•»-

 

“Hey bro,” Changbin says, giving Felix a hearty pat on the back. “D’you do the history homework?”

Felix says no, even though he has. He gives Changbin a weak smile, excuses himself to the bathroom, and doesn’t come back to the lunch table for the rest of morning tea. 

He doesn’t know how to handle himself now. Not just around Changbin, but everyone else, too. He’s been avoiding them in the easiest means possible, which is to say he’ll still sit at the table, but he won’t engage in any conversation, and he mostly just looks at his hands. 

He would’ve much preferred not having a revelation at all if it was going to mess him up like this. 

It’s Seungmin who pulls him aside at the end of the week, right as Felix slings his bag over his shoulder. 

“You’re not feeling well.” 

Sometimes it’s frightening how intuitive Seungmin is. Felix forgets sometimes, how the boy is always watching, noting things down, adding them up. He’s not just observant, he knows what to do with the observations he makes: maybe that’s what makes him so good at maths. Or vice versa. It’s kind of gross, the more he thinks about it. People who are good at maths shouldn’t exist. 

Seungmin is still staring at him. 

Right, a response. A response is something that Felix needs to be giving. 

“In a sense,” he mumbles back. 

There’s no point in denying things, really. Felix has been about as subtle as a brick to a window, in much a way that the whole school has probably noticed _something_ ’s up. 

“If it’s bothering you to sit with Changbin, you’re welcome to take a breather. Don’t feel obliged to stay with us just because you have other friends at the table, we understand.” 

Well _fuck_ Seungmin is intuitive. Which Felix has already mentioned. But. The point still stands _very_ strongly. 

“No! No. No, nah. That- it- it’s fine. Dude.” 

“Of course. You definitely sound fine,” Seungmin says wryly. 

He’s giving Felix a cheeky side-eye that he doesn’t exactly appreciate. It makes him squirm, so much so that he brings a hand up to push Seungmin’s face away by the cheek (left cheek, of course, Felix will give anything at all times for a legitimate excuse to poke it that won’t get him into severe trouble). 

“I’m serious! We’re cool.” 

Seungmin exhales through his nose. 

“What did he do this time? Listen, I know you guys are really close — closer than any of us have been to Changbin and we’ve known him for years — but he can be a little insensitive sometimes, you know? He really doesn’t mean everything he says, promise. You know how fast his mind works, he’s a rapper. Sometimes he forgets to filter himself and the words come out a little wrong before he can fix himself.” 

“Oh no we didn’t- we didn’t _fight_ , this is-“ Felix starts, but he doesn’t know how that sentence is supposed to end. 

“You didn’t?” 

“I don’t… think so?” 

“Oh,” Seungmin says, with something akin to a sigh of relief. “Sorry, I just- well. I know I shouldn’t assume things but usually when someone’s a little shifty but Changbin acts like nothing’s happened, it’s because Changbin’s said something without realising it.” 

“Ah, this is… not that.” 

Seungmin looks at Felix with a strange sort of smile. It’s a mixture of worry and fear, with a dash of curiosity.

“Alright. Well whatever it is, take the weekend to clear your head, okay? You’re all-”

Seungmin hesitates. When Felix looks up, his cheeks are a little pink. He wants to poke them again. 

“You’re all important to me, and. Stuff. Yeah.” 

Felix grins, slinging an arm over Seungmin’s shoulders. He doesn’t really need the boy to finish the sentence when he’s already heard the most important part.

 

-«•»-

 

Time: 0815  
Location: B block, locker 979

Felix has his eyes locked on his target, currently unloading the contents of his bag into his locker. He has his legs spread out so that the person beneath him also has access to his locker, and it’s not helping him reach the top shelf to grab his biology textbook. Deeming the textbook unimportant until the person beneath him is done, the target closes his locker and shuffles to the side. 

Felix eyes Jisu as she takes her dear sweet time getting her goggles out for chemistry. Surely it’s not _that_ difficult to find, although Felix is in no position to be saying anything considering the absolute pigsty his locker is — there’s a reason he always borrows one of the spare goggles in the lab. 

There’s a gap between Jisu getting up to leave for home room and the time it takes for Felix’s target to unlock his locker again: the perfect time to swoop.

So without hesitation, he goes in for the kill. 

“Hey Changbin!” Felix greets, right as Changbin spins his lock to the last digit of his code. “I’m in love with you!” 

There’s a loud, resounding smack at the same time that Felix feels an absolute need to sneeze come rushing to his nose. Also, his forehead kind of hurts. He doesn’t have the time to put two and two (three and three?) together when the sharp end of a maths textbook makes for his left foot, leaving Felix confused with which part of his body he should comfort first. 

“Fuck! Sorry. Are you okay?” 

Changbin is peering at him, Felix thinks, although his eyesight’s a little blurry so maybe it’s not Changbin but a Changbin lookalike. Wait, did he just confess to the wrong person? 

“Felix? Talk to me.” 

He blinks a few times, vision finally clearing, and after his ninth blink he finds Changbin’s face (and it is Changbin, not a lookalike) right up in his personal space, his hands gripping Felix’s triceps very tightly. 

“M’head hurts,” he grumbles, “kiss it better for me?” 

He’s teasing, of course. There’s no way Changbin will do it, especially not after his confession, but he thinks well, it wouldn’t hurt to give it another shot, right? By the looks of it, Changbin isn’t bothered enough by Felix’s feelings to make them stop being friends, so maybe if he just keeps slapping his feelings around on top of things that he does, Changbin will start falling for him too. 

But then Changbin leans in, and presses a feather-light kiss to his forehead, then to his nose, 

then to his lips. 

“Better?” he asks, letting go of Felix’s arms and quickly squatting down to the ground to pick up everything he’d dropped earlier — but he’s not fast enough for Felix to miss the bright pink that stains his cheeks. 

Felix is grateful for the easy confidence that he’d woken up with. He’s sure that in any other circumstance nothing would have gone this way. He knows himself, after all. He would’ve ended up a shaking leaf before Changbin, and the guy would’ve had to take him to the nurse’s office before he started convulsing mid-confession. But what can he say: he woke up on theright side of the bed? Or maybe he should owe it to his name — there isn’t a potion called felix felicis for nothing.

So it’s this one-day confidence that Felix takes when he opens his mouth again.

“Your locker door didn’t hit my lips, you know,” he says. 

He can’t stop the wide grin on his face, even though he can already feel it hurting in his cheeks. 

“Shut the fuck up, brat.” 

 

——«•»——

 

The jitters are unreal. 

Felix feels like this phrase is synonymous with all parts of his life at all times, but the jitters are unreal. He keeps reaching up to fiddle with his bowtie (much to his mother’s chagrin, who’s taken to hovering around behind his shoulder just to straighten it back in place every single time Felix touches it), and his collar is significantly less crisp because of the number of times he’s crumpled it down to check his pulse. 

Admittedly, Changbin has ten more minutes to show face before Felix can consider him late. But that doesn’t mean Felix can sit back on the sofa and chuck on some random TV show to relax while he waits. So he shuffles around the house, dress socks slippery against the hardwood floor, mother trailing behind him. 

Changbin turns up on time, like he always does. Even so, Felix wishes he had come half an hour earlier. An hour earlier. Any time that isn’t right now, just to relieve him of his stress, because first of all this is his first semi-formal for God’s sake, and second of all, now that Changbin _is_ here, Felix has _other_ things to stress about.

Like how _fucking good_ Changbin looks. 

He looks ethereal, like an angel — no, a _fallen_ angel. He looks sinfully good, double breasted blazer hugging his muscles in a way that scrappy black t-shirts have never done. Suddenly, Felix’s clothes are too tight, too suffocating. There’s not enough space for him to breathe with Changbin looking this stunning before him. 

“Darling? Aren’t you going to go?” 

Felix’s head snaps over to his mother, who’s trying to plaster a concerned look onto her face, but Felix knows she’s laughing. A lot. He can see it in the way her lips keep quivering out of the worried frown she’s tried to place them in. Annoyed, he starts to make for the door, hand already reaching out for the knob when Changbin speaks up. 

“Actually, Mrs. Lee, could you take a photo of us together?” 

_NO!_ is what Felix wants to shout as he feels his cheeks become impossibly hotter, but Changbin’s already handing his phone over to his mother. He’s thankful for the fact that he decided to put some make up on today, or the red in his cheeks would be kept in the archives for family members long in the future to look at. He’s thankful that he won’t have great great grandchildren laughing about how he looked like a tomato at his very first semi-formal. 

Except. 

“Lix,” Changbin pouts, hands coming up to frame his face, “why’d you cover up your freckles?” 

_Fuck_ this guy. What did Felix see in him again?

The pads of Changbin’s thumbs softly brush away the concealer, and Felix slowly comes to terms with his future of being teased by his kids for years to come. He’s not particularly pleased about it (scratch that, he’s seething) but he supposes he could steal Changbin’s phone later and put some filters on it so that no one can tell that he’s nearing levels of severe sunburn with how red he is. 

“Don’t worry, you look smoking hot,” Changbin says. 

Felix wants to smack him upside the butt so hard he’ll start his own orbit around Earth and never be able to come back. 

 

-«•»-

 

“You know,” Changbin starts. His arms are looped around Felix’s waist as the DJ plays the first slow song of the night, couples swaying left and right around them. “I’m in love with you too.”

It startles Felix a little. Not enough to warrant him smacking a locker door in Changbin’s face or dropping his books on his foot (not that he has any of these things accessible anyway, he’s on a dance floor and the only things close by are lovestruck teenagers), but his hands tense from where they’re positioned on Changbin’s shoulders, and his step falters momentarily. 

“Took you long enough to come to that conclusion,” Felix grumbles, because it’s been a good handful of months since he confessed, and this is the first time he’s heard Changbin verbally return his feelings. 

He won’t lie, it’s kept him awake at night a lot, but he just kind of assumed that you know, people have different ways of showing things, and he’s sure Changbin wouldn’t still be here if he didn’t feel the same way. But Changbin seems to take offence to his comment, because he bristles every so slightly before pulling Felix in closer to himself.

“For your information, I have been in love with you since like, two months into meeting you, but you went and ruined my plans by confessing before me,” he says, indignant. “I was trying to wait until I could invite you to my semi, then I was going to do it on that balcony right over there with a stolen fake rose from the table. Can you sue me for trying to be romantic?” 

“Yes!” Felix retorts, almost yelling, but a lot of the couples on the dance floor have resorted to sucking face and are in their own worlds, so it doesn’t really matter. “If I waited for you we would’ve wasted like ten years of being able to be boyfriends you dumb fuck!” 

Changbin stares at him, speechless, and he stops swaying momentarily. Then he smiles, cheeks lifting, and he leans in for a quick peck on the lips. 

And in that moment, Felix swears, he feels like an All Star. 

 

 

 

 

 

♡•♡•♡

 

 

 

 

> ` + BONUS `

“Binnie?” Felix asks, looking over at where his boyfriend is lying on the sofa on his phone. He waits for some sort of noise of affirmation before continuing on. “You know you never kissed my foot even though you dropped all your books on it.” 

Changbin jolts, dropping his phone on his face and almost falling onto the floor. 

“That’s gross! What, do you think I’ve got a foot fetish or something?” he yells, sitting up.

Felix cocks his head to the side, regarding Changbin carefully. 

“You don’t?”

Changbin splutters, and he lifts himself off the floor, arms ready to strangle his boyfriend before he gives up and flops back down. He huffs once, twice, then crosses his arms, avoiding Felix’s gaze when he peers over his angry form. 

“That’s too bad, I went and got a pedicure and everything.”

There’s a palpable silence after that, thick enough for Felix to come through with a plastic katana from Daiso and slice it, and Changbin heaves out one long-suffering breath through his nose. There’s a parade of emotions that cross his face before he finally sits himself up.

“Are you sure _you’re_ not the one with the foot fetish?” he asks, one eyebrow raised. 

“I was preparing myself just in case! I wanted to be perfect just for you.”

“I wanna say that’s sweet, but I’m still disgusted about the fact that you thought I might have a foot fetish,” is Changbin’s reply, before he pulls Felix down to the ground and into a mangled hug. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tell me if you need any specific things in this story explained! I know Australia tends to have different customs to other countries :) 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


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